The present invention relates generally to round balers, and more particularly to a device on such machines for “kicking” bales as they exit the baler to assure that the bale is spaced from the baler.
At the completion of the bale-forming cycle, most round balers open the rear portion of the bale-forming chamber, referred sometimes to the tailgate, and eject the bale onto the ground. If the tailgate is too close to the ejected bale, the tailgate cannot be closed, and entire baler must be moved ahead before starting the bale-formation process. The problem is that by moving the baler ahead without closing the tailgate, some crop is missed and thus left out of the process. Some balers use a pivotable ramp that directs the bale rearward upon ejection. Such designs are usually spring biased into the rest position. The problem with this design are that it does not work well when operating the baler on a downward incline, i.e., the bale does not roll away from the baler, but rather stops immediately or rolls back toward the baler.
Bale kickers have been used on round balers for several years to push the finished bales rearwardly from the baler to provide the space necessary to close the tailgate and initiate the next baling process without having to move the baler and bypass crop material on the ground. U.S. Pat. No. 4,206,587 to Freimuth et al. shows several bale kickers that are pivotable between raised and lowered positions and biased by springs toward the raised position. Prior kickers, such as shown in Freimuth et al. and, for another example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,458,587 to Jennings, are fairly complex and thus costly additions to the basic baler.
It would be quite beneficial to have a bale kicker that significantly reduces the complexity and cost of prior known bale kickers, and consistently provides the force necessary to push the bale an adequate distance away from the baler to allow effective and efficient operation of the baler in all kinds of operating conditions.